Images of Asia
Palmer, Norman D.
Images of Asia Scratches on Our Minds: American images of china and india, by Harold R. Isaacs. John Day. 416 pp. $6.75. Yonder One World: a study of asia and the west, by Frank Moraes....
...You can't take it with you, and the best bequest to your children is a peaceful and undevastated world...
...China has obviously left "visible scratches" on the minds of many Americans, but India thus far has left only "faint lines which have to be searched out to be seen...
...residence in China and the Philippines...
...You can help Mrs...
...It is particularly important, therefore, that the peoples of Asia and the West learn to understand each other better and to overcome the handicaps of the mistakes and misconceptions of the past...
...He is fundamentally a reporter who has benefited from his contacts with the academic world without being overwhelmed by its restrictions or its jargon...
...Reviewed by Norman D. Palmer Americans who go to Asia are invariably disturbed to encounter so many misconceptions and misunderstandings o? the nature of American society and institutions and of the attitudes and aspirations of the American people...
...Between his introductory chapter, based on the application to the present world scene of Gandhi's well-known concept of the proper relationship between means and ends, and his final chapter on the prospects for democracy and for Communism in Asia, Moraes presents observations and impressions of many countries of Asia and the West which he has visited since 1942...
...DAVID CORT is a free lance writer who has written frequently for The Nation...
...It is the ff is up to you...
...If he fails, he will have failed not only India but, it may be, humanity...
...two and a half hungry years of imprisonment in Santo Tomas Internment Camp during World War II with her late husband, William Cheney Bryant (a former provincial governor in the Philippines...
...He was impressed by the genuine desire of the American leaders and the American people for peace, and he concluded that Americans were less materialistic and more cultured than he had been led to believe...
...If she wins, it will encourage others who advocate the use of reason rather than a mad arms race to come forward as candidates for national office in 1960...
...The prevailing impressions of the Chinese were based on "the experience of the first four decades of this century...
...Specifically, 98, or 54 per cent, including almost all of the China specialists, "expressed more or less strongly negative views about Indians," whereas 123, or 70 per cent, "expressed predominantly positive or admiring views of Chinese...
...This will involve a revision of past assumptions and policies and "a great and wrenching shift in the juxtaposition of cultures and peoples...
...Unlike Isaacs, his main focus is India, his native country, and not China...
...To a remarkable degree, according to Isaacs, "American missionary effort in China is responsible for the unique place China occupies in the American cosmos...
...In the United States, which he had not visited before, he gained many insights into American thinking and life during a two-months trip...
...There are many "scratches" on his mind, and he reveals some of them, either directly or unconsciously, in Yonder One World...
...American awareness of India, in fact, dates largely from World War II...
...Seattle, Washington THE REVIEWERS JAMES E. DOYLE is a Madison, Wisconsin, attorney and former co-chairman of Americans for Democratic Action...
...If such a change is indeed to take place, an obvious early step is to examine the stereotypes of each other which now exist in the minds of Asians and Westerners...
...Islamic countries are "peculiarly susceptible to authoritarian ideas...
...He devotes two chapters each to India, China, and Japan, which "constitute the core of Asia," and also to Southeast Asia...
...Alice Franklin Bryant, through continuous study and extensive world travel, is exceedingly well informed, especially in foreign affairs...
...but he agreed that they were right "in identifying India with these two stark drawbacks...
...Mushroom Clouds or Peaceful Progress The most quietly spectacular and significant campaign in the United States this year is between military extremist Senator Henry Jackson of Washington and Alice Franklin Bryant, a candidate made to order for readers of The Progressive...
...The 181 persons Isaacs selected lor separate interviews are by no means representative of any particular cross-section of the American people...
...The real fight" is Asia, he recognizes, "has still to be waged...
...I suspect that if he would interview the same 181 people again, and probe more deeply, he might have different conclusions in many instances...
...Twenty-five were classified by Isaacs as "India specialists" and 16 as "China specialists...
...This calls for a basic change in the Western approach to Asia, and in Asian attitudes toward the West...
...Bryant's former pastor, a man who knows her well, says of her: Mrs...
...he served in the State Department during the period in which Hiss was an official there...
...The outstanding fact that emerged from these interviews was that the majority of those interviewed held generally favorable attitudes toward the Chinese and generally unfavorable attitudes toward the Indians...
...He is so concerned with this danger that he suggests that Nehru "should dedicate his vast influence and authority in India to mobilizing, organizing, and consolidating a 'decisive moral resistance to Communism.' " The stakes are high, and the need is urgent...
...The "Gandhi image," however, was strong and impressive, and the "Nehru image" was beginning to take form...
...A new and perhaps more difficult era in the relations between Asia and the West is beginning...
...travel in 47 countries and colonies including a tour last year of the U.S.S.R., Finland, Poland, and France, in order to study conditions and trends of thought...
...Moreover, "the Chinese stood highest in the esteem of those who had most contact with them," whereas "Indians scored better among those who knew them little...
...battle between nationalism and Communism...
...democratic socialism" is the only possible alternative to Communism in underdeveloped countries...
...BRYANT CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE 704 Stewart St...
...Could it be that this perceptive Indian visitor in a short trip caught more faithfully the prevailing attitude toward India than did Harold Isaacs with all his experience in both Asia and America and with all his intensive interviewing...
...They belong to what Gabriel Almond has called policy and opinion "elites" and they have special contacts or interests in Asia...
...3.75...
...but the implications of this fact, and even the fact itself, seem to be lost on the majority of Americans...
...This is what Mrs...
...Send as generous a contribution as you can—today...
...her letters in this publication, the last ones in February and November, 1957...
...Senate...
...and he is more concerned with advancing his own views and impressions than with recording the images of others...
...He is concerned with the viewpoints of others, and he does not shrink from trying to reflect prevailing attitudes of Indians and from making generalizations regarding various peoples and countries...
...His findings have been presented in a lengthy and delightfully written book, which shows what a first-class reporter can do if he combines his own sensitive insights and impressions with those of other Americans who have some special interest in the subjects he is investigating...
...Ninety-nine of them have been to India, 43 to China, and 30 have visited or lived in both countries...
...Bryant win...
...One wonders whether the surprisingly unfavorable images of Indians which Isaacs found in the minds of the majority of the persons whom he interviewed, including those who knew India best, really reflected their deepest feelings, or whether these images represented rather the common tendency of Americans to speak more disparagingly than they feel of peoples whose ways of life and attitudes are sometimes baffling to them...
...Jackson's war chest is overflowing, and this campaign in Washington may well have more meaning for you than any in your own state...
...in the past the two men have differed on many things, including the proper course of action which should be followed in dealing with Communism, in India or elsewhere...
...And it will serve notice on our Administration that we want peace through reliance on peaceful measures...
...209 pp...
...Bryant is a forceful, energetic and capable woman with a wide background of experience which includes teaching, writing, and lecturing...
...Isaacs seems to realize that what those he interviewed told him may not add up to what they really think at all, but he could perhaps have avoided further "scratches" if he had showed a greater appreciation of this fact...
...A woman of high ethical standards, absolute integrity, deep concern for our own nation and all humanity, and possessed of great courage, she would add stature and good (udgment to the U.S...
...But these images are already fading, and a new and frightening image of the Chinese under Communism is emerging...
...Mrs...
...Frank Moraes, like Harold Isaacs, is an able and experienced journalist who has seen a great deal of Asia as well as the Western world...
...Unlike most of his fellow-countrymen, he is acutely aware of the dangers of Communism in India, in Asia, and in the world as a whole...
...It is highly doubtful, however, that Nehru will heed this advice of his long-time friend and biographer...
...In 1954 Harold R. Isaacs, a seasoned reporter and veteran observer of the Asian scene who had recently become associated with the Center for International Studies at M.I.T., embarked on an ambitious project of determining American images of China and India by means of interviews with 181 persons over a period of 14 months and a careful examination of the literature on past and present relations between the United States and these two Asian countries...
...Their first-hand experiences and observations in Asia usually lead them to conclude that Americans entertain equally misleading stereotypes of Asia and Asians...
...He encountered the usual criticism and misunderstandings of India and of Indians, but his net impression was of a tremendous interest in India and a generally favorable attitude toward it...
...He was somewhat surprised to find that Americans referred so frequently to "two of our primary weaknesses—poverty and the caste system...
...These included two visits to China, under both Kuomintang and Communist rule, trips to Japan, Indonesia, Indo-China, the Philippines, Burma, Thailand, Malaya, Pakistan, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, Western Germany, and the United States...
...Possibly he softens his conclusions sufficiently by observing that "in the major features of his portrait of the Indian, . . . there are many keys to the American's portrait of himself...
...Macmillan...
...Some of his opinions reflect typically Indian views or biases: for example, "the facts of the Kashmir problem are indisputable...
...NORMAN D. PALMER is a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania...
...Before then the impressions of most Americans were formed by odd bits of news and experiences, with strange mixtures of Kipling and Katherine Mayo, stories of maharajahs and sacred cows, reports of missionary activities, news of a caste-ridden and poverty-stricken people...
Vol. 22 • July 1958 • No. 7
